Monday, April 23, 2012

The weather allowed me to spend some time in the sewing room last week. I turned 2" squares into strips of 4 squares...

...and then into 16-patch blocks which I framed...

...and then put them together to make this quilt.

The weather improved on Saturday but I finished the quilt and got the picture before heading out to help hubby work on my new garden shed. Here he is working on the floor. We got the floor all framed up and in the afternoon hubby and SIL headed out to get the flooring.

Forty percent of the floor was screwed/nailed down on Saturday and by the time I was home from church yesterday, hubby had the rest finished. Floor paint was purchased and I got the first coat of 'battleship grey' on the floor. The sun is supposed to stay around so I will get a second coat done today.

When I wasn't needed to help with the floor I got some mowing, weed-eating and weeding done. I also pruned the blackberry patch.

While we worked on that #2 daughter and SIL were finishing up the exterior of their little house on wheels. All 7 windows are in, the siding is all fixed around the windows and the finishing touches are done on the roof. That was their goal for this 'home time' for SIL who is a long haul trucker. He was back in his truck early Sunday morning and heading south.

Last evening we ordered the 'garage door' for the shed. It will be about 3 weeks before that is delivered and in that time we will be working on getting the walls and roofed framed up. We also went 'shopping' out in the 'cow barn'for a window for the end wall and picked out an old wooden window that came out of our garage.

Today besides the painting I hope to finish weeding the strawberries and maybe I will get my geraniums potted up on the deck. Then I can spend some time in the sewing room.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

I finally finished sewing triangles together! I think I ended up with 452 broken dishes blocks in various sizes. I have some other projects that need to get finished so the blocks are going back in the drawer for a while.

One project that is now on the front burner are some graduation quilts. I came up with a plan that would use up some of my precut squares. Basically it is these two blocks alternating.

My niece, Katie, used up some of her scraps making a quilt like this and I liked how it turned out. I started out counting my 2.5" squares knowing I would need 628 squares to make a nice size quilt. When I was done counting I had just a few over that number! I moved on to the 3" squares and again had just a few over what I needed! I made one of each block from each size squares to make sure I had calculated the strip sizes and then kitted up two quilts. Here are the 2.5" squares and their strips.

Then I started thinking about my 2" squares. I had quite a few but I didn't think I had enough to make the same type of quilt in a similar size but I counted them up and then got to thinking that I could make them into 16-patch blocks and then border the blocks with strips, using 2 contrasting colors on alternating blocks. I need something like 1008 squares for that so I started counting out those squares. I only had around 500 but I had quite a few 4" squares so I cut those into 2" squares and ended up with just a few more than I figured I needed. Here they are in a basket and I have started sewing them up as leaders and enders ala Bonnie Hunter.

This is what is left in the drawer that was almost full of precut squares! Pretty exciting to have so few left!

In other news, I continue to work on Owl Hats I have several that just need their faces sewn on and they will be done. Just need to sit down and do that. Maybe next week at craft night I will get them finished?

My daughter and her husband (here for his 'home time' this week) now have 6 of the 7 windows installed in their little house and are doing some thinking about lighting since wiring will be one of the next steps. If you are interested in reading more about their little house and seeing more pictures check out her blog.

I managed to get a little mowing done today between rain showers. I had to get the yard inside the fence done so Miss Lucy could find a place to potty without getting her tummy all wet from the tall grass! That went pretty fast so I strapped on Lucy's pouch and we rode the big mower around for an hour or so also. Here is a picture of us taken a couple of weeks ago.

Lucy is so excited when I am putting on the pouch and loves riding around with me, frequently taking naps even!

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

My niece wrote me an email the other day checking to see if I was still alive. You see, I live on the west coast and she lives almost to the east coast and she keeps up with what is going on in our lives via this blog. It turns out it has almost been 3 weeks since my last post and she was starting to get worried!

Things have just been a little crazy! A couple of days after my last post I headed across the state to visit with my oldest and youngest children, my son-in-law and grandkids, my niece and nephew going to school over there and my best friend's oldest daughter who is also at school over there. Then I brought the grandkids home with me for the beginning of their spring break. On Sunday, my niece, Katie, came over and watched the kids so my husband and I could go out to dinner for our 30th anniversary and the next morning she and I took the kids down to Portland OR to meet their other grammy for a few days with her. Katie and I managed to stop at 3 fabric stores on the trip and the sun was shining so it was a good day!

Two days later, my middle child, arrived back at home for a few months to finish building her little house. She is now settled in the travel trailer and starting to put windows in.

On Saturday, we helped get Katie moved into her first home. She is so excited to own her own home and was fun helping her get settled in.

Sunday was Easter and it was a beautiful day! Not very often we get to eat dinner out on the deck on Easter in the Pacific Northwest!

That was the short version of the last 3 weeks and I will 'flesh it out' a bit over the next few days and through in some pictures too. See you soon!